The Information You Need to Make Decisions That MatterThe Nursing Home Law Center is committed to providing the legal resources necessary to hold negligent facilities accountable.LEARN MORE

About the Nursing Home Law Center

The focus of the Nursing Home Law Center is to provide information to families so they can make informed decisions about their loved ones. Frequently, this means reporting on issues involving medical and legal developments in the area of nursing home negligence.

We invite you to browse the material in this ‘news’ section, where we have a virtual encyclopedia related to skilled nursing facilities and elder care.

Should you have any questions about this content or a situation involving a family member, please contact us. All consultations are free and confidential.

Our attorneys have experience representing families across the United States in matters involving abuse and neglect. Put our expertise to work for you.

To ensure the public remains fully informed on the level of care every nursing home provides, both the State of Rhode Island and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) conduct routine surveys and inspections. These inspections help identify serious problems, health hazards, violations, and deficiencies. In most cases, the nursing facility is given the opportunity to make prompt corrections to the level of care they provide, and adjustments of the policies and procedures used as guidelines for the nursing staff.

Some nursing facilities cannot or will not make these necessary improvements. When this occurs, the Home can face serious consequences including monetary penalties, a demand of selling their business to another company in good standing and be added to the federal watch list. Even if the facility becomes compliant with federal and state nursing home regulations, they often remain on the watch list for years as surveyors and inspectors evaluate the permanency of their corrections.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the state of Texas conduct routine surveys and unannounced investigations at every nursing facility statewide. The effort to the surveyors and inspectors help identify serious concerns involving violations and deficiencies at the Home. When problems are identified, the facility has the opportunity to make immediate corrections to maintain and protect the health and safety of every resident.

In some egregious cases, state and federal nursing center regulators will designate a Home as a Special Focus Facility (SFF) on a national watch list. Receiving this unwelcomed designation means that the facility will have to undergo additional unscheduled surveys and inspections to determine the level of improvements that the nursing home has made. The facility can only be removed from the watch list after many years of proving how significant changes made to the policies/procedures in providing care has significantly increased the quality of life of the resident.

Both the State of California and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) conduct routine investigations, surveys and inspections of every nursing facility statewide. The results of their inspections often help identify serious safety concerns, health violations, and deficiencies. When the Center is found to be deficient and violating state and federal nursing home regulations, they are required to make prompt changes to the level of care they provide residents and revise their policies and procedures that reflect compliance with the law.

Unfortunately, some nursing home facilities are unwilling or unable to make necessary corrections and changes. In these cases, nursing home regulators will designate the Center a Special Focus Facility (SFF) and add the Home to the federal Medicare watch list. Additionally, the nursing facility must undergo many more inspections than normal. If the nursing home remains out of compliance, the owners can be forced to sell their operation to another company in good standing or lose their contract with Medicare and Medicaid to provide services to federally-funded patients.

People live their lives by taking care of themselves, and in the case of parents, taking care of their children. As they get older, people begin to have difficulties in caring for themselves and need to rely on others to help with common activities. Physical or mental barriers may make it difficult for the elderly to take care of themselves. However, when people have others caring for them, problems of elder abuse can occur.

So, what is elder abuse? As defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Elder abuse is an intentional act, or failure to act, by a caregiver or another person in a relationship involving an expectation of trust that causes or creates a risk of harm to an older adult. (An older adult is defined as someone age 60 or older.)

As parents or grandparents get older, it is important for us to ensure that they avoid being a victim of elder abuse. To learn more about elder abuse, and how this can be prevented, we have put together the following information. Please feel free to review the information and hopefully it helps prevent a loved one become a victim.

At some point in our lives, we all must deal with the loss of someone we love. The loss may come after a lengthy illness, or it may come suddenly. Our loved one may have spent months or years in a hospital or nursing home, or they may live in our home. However it happens, we must cope with the person’s absence and deal with our grief.

It is widely accepted that people move through five distinct stages as they deal with grief over the loss of a loved one. The five stages of grief are sometimes called the Kubler-Ross model after the Swiss psychiatrist who developed the theory, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. This model set forth a series of emotions people go through as they grieve, including denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She introduced this model in her book On Death and Dying. Her model was developed as a result of work she did with terminally ill patients. The stages are not a linear progression, and some people may not experience all of them, but they are a framework to understand what we are feeling when we experience a profound loss.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the state of Nebraska routinely conduct investigations and surveys at every nursing facility statewide. Their efforts help identify serious concerns, violations and deficiencies occurring inside the nursing home that affect the health and well-being of the residents. In some incidents, the surveyors will issue one or more citations and call for prompt corrective action.

At some locations, the underlying problems of the nursing facility that led to the discrepancies make it extremely difficult to ensure that any improvement made at the Home remains permanent. In the most deplorable cases, the nursing home will be placed on a national watchlist and designated a Special Focus Facility (SFF). This special designation will result in numerous additional surveys, investigations, and inspections throughout the year to determine if the nursing home has made any significant improvement to the level of care they provide.

Law Firm Representing Injured Victims at Diversicare of St. Joseph

To ensure the public remains fully informed about the level of care provided in every nursing facility in Missouri, federal and state regulators conduct surveys and investigations year-round.

The Missouri State Health Department and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) enforce regulations enacted by state legislatures and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). When egregious violations and serious safety deficiencies are identified, the nursing home is placed on notice to make corrections quickly or suffer the financial consequences.

The state of Maryland and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) make unannounced visits to every nursing home statewide at least twice each year to perform surveys, inspections, and investigations. Their efforts help to quickly identify serious concerns, violations, and deficiencies that could affect the health of one or more residents.

Nursing homes found to have egregious problems are often designated as a Special Focus Facility (SFF) and placed on a national Medicare watch list. The surveyors and investigators typically conduct unannounced inspections or show up unexpectedly to investigate a complaint filed by a resident, employee, family member or visitor.

Injured Arbors East Subacute and Rehabilitation Center Residents Can File a Claim for Compensation

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the state of Ohio conduct routine investigations, inspections, and surveys to identify violations and deficiencies at every nursing home statewide. The facility is then given the opportunity to correct these serious problems to protect the health of every resident.

In some cases, the seriousness of the deficiency or violation is so egregious that nursing home regulators designate the Home as a Special Focus Facility (SFF). This national watch list helps to quickly identify each nursing facility in the US providing substandard care. These Homes tend to stay on the watch list for many years as state inspectors conduct extended surveys and investigations on filed complaints.

Attorneys Representing Injured Residents of Chalet of Niles

The state of Michigan and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) conduct unannounced surveys and unexpected investigations to identify violations and deficiencies that could or have caused harm to residents. When these deficiencies are identified, the nursing home must adjust policies and make improvements quickly to ensure resident safety is maintained.

In serious cases, the federal and state nursing home regulatory agencies will classify the non-complying nursing home as a Special Focus Facility (SFF). The undesirable designation and placement on the federal watchlist help families identify nursing facilities in their local community that provide substandard care. These Homes can remain on the watch list for many years until regulators are satisfied that the improvements the facility has made will remain permanent.